Corporate Bodies (2 page)

‘It shall be done.'

‘OK, Charles, see you tomorrow. Train to Bedford, change there on to the branch line to Stenley Curton. Factory's just opposite the station. Go to main reception, ask for Ken Colebourne's office.'

‘Right. Thanks for puffing my name up.'

‘No problem. But remember – don't giggle!'

The audition – no, he must stop saying that, it gave away how long he'd been in the business, no actor younger than Charles Paris ever used the word ‘audition', they all talked about ‘interviews' these days – the interview for the Delmoleen job was not the most artistically taxing that he had ever undergone.

As any actor should, he had of course prepared for the encounter to come, trying out voices and expressions in front of his mirror, and taking on the character with its tracksuit, T-shirt and trainers. (It was a mild May. He didn't need any kind of topcoat.)

For the train to Bedford, he had even gone to the extent of buying a copy of the
Sun
rather than his customary
Times.
Unfortunately, having read every word of the paper twice before the train drew out of St Pancras, he was reduced to looking out of the window for the rest of his journey. Still, he comforted himself, that is probably what a forklift truck driver would have done, so, boring though it might be, he was at least continuing to get into character.

He reflected that, to go the whole hog, he should really have got into a ‘Smoking' compartment and lit up a Players Number Six, but there were some things, even for his art, Charles Paris could not bring himself to do.

Will Parton's directions had been precise and Charles found his way to the Delmoleen site without any hitches. The view from the exit to Stenley Curton railway station was dominated by a long two-storey brick building directly opposite. Probably late nineteenth century, it had been built for some unspecified and discontinued industrial purpose, but now unmistakably belonged to Delmoleen. The company logo arched hugely over the main gates, and reappeared on the new fascia that had been grafted on to the reception area.

When Charles asked for Ken Colebourne, he was directed out of the main building to the township of low modern rectangles behind. Though these looked boring and functional from the outside, the interior of the office into which he was ushered was anonymously graceful, with black wood and smoked glass, low tables, charcoal sofas and armchairs. Expensively photographed and discreetly framed Delmoleen products looked down from the walls.

Will was already there, and introduced the other two men. The writer was dressed in a voluminous suit and exotic tie, a marked contrast from his customary uniform of denim shirt and jeans. ‘They don't listen to you if you're not wearing a suit,' he had confided. ‘Always got to go for the gravitas in this business, you know, Charles.'

Charles was invited to sink into one of the sofas. Coffee was produced. He sat there, waiting to be asked to do his bit, but Ken Colebourne, the Marketing Director, and Robin Pritchard, the Product Manager for Biscuits and Cereals, showed no interest at all in his artistic abilities.

This was probably just as well. On the phone the night before, Charles and Will Parton had spun some childish fantasies about suitable audition pieces for the meaty role under consideration.

Charles had opened the bidding rather feebly with ‘To lift or not to lift, that is the question'. Then Will had gone all Keatsian with a reference to ‘bursting Joy's grape against his pallet fine'. Charles had countered by ‘Once more unto the reach-truck, friends, once more/Or fill the shelves up with unwanted stock'; after which their conversation had degenerated into a series of variations on the word ‘fork', until Charles ended things by saying that such jokes were terribly vulgar and ‘the kind of thing with which he would no longer have any truck'.

The result of all this was that, if he had been asked to read anything, the giggle-risk-factor might have become unacceptably high. Being in costume and character, as always, reduced the danger, but didn't eliminate it completely. Still, so long as he didn't catch Will's eye, Charles found he could look appropriately and soberly impressed while Ken Colebourne expatiated on the many virtues of the Delmoleen company and products.

‘I mean, we are very big. And when I say big, I mean big. Isn't that right, Robin?'

‘Oh yes, Ken. Delmoleen is big.'

‘I mean, still an independent corporation, we haven't been swallowed up into one of the multinationals, but the fact remains that our outreach is big.'

‘Global,' Robin Pritchard confirmed, ‘global.'

‘Ah. Right. Good,' said Charles, in his enthusiastic but slightly non-committal ‘off' voice. Actually, it was the one he had used in
The Birthday Party
at Bury St Edmunds (‘Charles Paris's performance seemed nearer to Panto than Pinter' –
Eastern Daily Press
).

‘But, though we're big,' Ken Colebourne went on, ‘we are still a caring company. Caring for the environment, obviously . . . Isn't that right, Robin?'

‘Right, Ken.'

‘But also caring for our employees. And that's what this video's about. It's to show that everyone the company employs is part of the Delmoleen family, and that “big” doesn't automatically mean impersonal.'

The pause extended. Charles, reminding himself he wasn't back in
The Birthday Party
, broke the silence with a ‘Right'.

‘This is something that's a big priority with B.T..'

‘Right,' said Charles again, wondering mildly what British Telecom had to do with food products.

‘He's very much behind the whole concept.'

Clocking the fact that ‘B.T.' was a person, Charles threw in a ‘Good' by way of variety.

‘Isn't that right, Robin?'

‘Oh, certainly, Ken. The whole thing's really Brian's baby.'

So that sorted out the ‘B' of ‘B.T.' Brian who? Clearly someone of considerable importance in the hierarchy. Charles nodded thoughtfully, deciding that, given the awe with which the name had been mentioned, it would be inappropriate to ask who ‘B.T.' or ‘Brian' was.

He wondered if the difference in the way the two men spoke of their superior was another reflection of the difference in their styles. ‘B.T.' had a dated and distanced feel to it, while the ‘Brian' implied not only a more informal approach, but also greater intimacy in the Product Manager's relationship.

‘And you've always been the midwife to Brian's babies, haven't you, Ken?'

As Robin Pritchard said this, Charles was aware of an undercurrent in the younger man's voice. It was nothing as positive as insolence, but the intonation implied some kind of challenge. And a flicker in the Marketing Director's expression showed that he was aware of that challenge.

They were a contrasted pair; Ken Colebourne short and thick-set, grey-haired but with eyebrows and moustache still black. The suit was bluish with close white stripes: the tie, red, blue and white bands of different widths that didn't quite amount to anything regimental. Ken's voice had a Midland roughness. He gave the impression of a tough pragmatist who had worked up the hard way. Not a man with a great sense of humour. Certainly not a man to cross.

The Product Manager for Biscuits and Cereals was at least twenty years younger, and had more obvious educational gloss. University certainly, possibly business school as well. The brown suit on his long frame was more fashionably floppy than Ken Colebourne's, the tie looked like a detail from some twentieth-century abstract painting. Robin Pritchard wore round tortoiseshell glasses, and had either a weak mouth or a permanently sardonic expression. Or possibly both.

Suddenly Charles identified the quality in the younger man's voice. Robin Pritchard was, ever so slightly, sending up Ken Colebourne. His older colleague was fully aware of this, and didn't like it. Ken was the one who was meant to be running the interview, but Robin very subtly implied that it was taking place by his licence.

‘The reason we wanted to see you, Mr Paris . . .' the Marketing Director went on. ‘I mean, obviously we respect Will's advice and his recommendation of you as an actor . . . but we had to check that you look right.'

‘Right,' Charles echoed reasonably.

‘You see, this video will be seen all over the place. I mean, in-house, as induction to new employees . . . quite possibly for recruitment purposes . . . probably at trade fairs . . . It is going to cover the whole international scope of the Delmoleen operation – and that is big, as I may have said.'

Yes, thought Charles, you have said it. A few times.

‘So, it's important that we don't have anyone in the video who looks wrong for the Delmoleen image.'

‘No, we do have a global profile to maintain, after all, don't we, Ken?' Now that Charles had identified the element of mockery in Robin Pritchard's manner, it seemed more overt.

As intended, the Marketing Director was a little flustered. ‘Yes, yes, of course. So, really, Mr Paris, we've called you in just to have a look at you, see how you fit in to the Delmoleen picture.'

‘Well, here I am,' said Charles, spreading his arms wide in an ingenuous shrug.

‘Yes . . . yes . . .' said Ken Colebourne, focusing on the actor as if for the first time, as though he hadn't been able to form any visual impressions while he'd been talking. After a moment's scrutiny, there was another thoughtful ‘Yes'; then another; then ‘I'm not really too sure.'

‘Oh, for heaven's sake, Ken. You're not at a cattle market.' Robin Pritchard turned to Charles with confidential bonhomie. ‘I do apologise for my colleague's bad manners, Mr Paris.'

‘No problem.' And it wasn't. Compared to the diplomatic skills demonstrated by some television directors, this was the height of good manners.

Robin Pritchard's words were a problem for Ken Colebourne, however. Again, the Marketing Director had winced, biting back some angry riposte. He knew that, in a verbal contest, the younger man would be the more nimble and only make him look clumsy.

‘To be quite frank, Robin, I'm a bit worried about the age factor . . .'

Charles tried not to show that the barb had been hurtful. Like all actors, he always tried to look younger than his real age. This was not – or at least not wholly – for the reasons of vanity that drive some women to such deceptions; it was a matter of simple survival. There are few enough parts around, anyway; no actor wants to disqualify himself from any of them by being too old. Whenever Charles was asked at an audition – sorry, interview – the direct question, ‘How old are you?', his automatic reply was, ‘Forty-eight, but play younger.' Which wasn't the exact truth, but near enough for an actor.

Ken Colebourne expanded his point. ‘I mean, remember, what B.T.'s keen to do is to project the overall image of Delmoleen. Is that going to be helped by having a forklift truck driver on the verge of retirement?'

Ouch! Now that one really did hurt.

Will Parton came to his friend's rescue. ‘The point is, Ken, that we want to project the whole company . . . you know, like an extended family. So we've got to have a spread of ages. I mean, the kid who's going to be in the office for this warehouse sequence, Dayna, is only about eighteen . . . but we need the other end of the spectrum too. In an extended family, you've got kids . . . and you've got grandfathers . . .'

How dare you, Will? Even though he was a grandfather three times over, Charles Paris wasn't enjoying the direction of the conversation one bit.

‘I'm still not sure . . .'

Will came in with the clincher. ‘Brian was very keen on this when I talked to him. I mentioned the “extended family” idea and he liked it a lot.'

‘Oh. Oh well, that's fine then. Consider yourself hired, Mr Paris.' Ken Colebourne reached a stubby hand across his desk. Robin Pritchard seemed to find something infinitely amusing in a vortex at the end of his tie. Will Parton looked innocently up to the ceiling. Charles Paris tried to avoid his friend's eye.

And that's how he got the job of being a forklift truck driver.

‘NO, NO, NO, NO!' said Trevor. ‘You got to swing the wheel round with more power than that.'

‘Well, I don't want to go crashing into –' Charles began.

‘I thought that looked fine, actually,' the Director, Griff Merricks, interposed in a conciliatory tone. Not difficult for him; conciliatory was the only tone he possessed.

Now over sixty, Griff's main claim to fame in the business was his ‘unflappability'. Charles suspected that this quality, which at times verged on torpor, arose from the fact that the director had no interest whatsoever in any of the work he did. He was a competent framer of shots, unimpeded by imagination, who had pottered along amiably enough in the BBC until he reached retirement age, and was therefore now ideally qualified to direct corporate videos.

Will Parton, having worked with Griff on a few projects and knowing him to be ‘safe' to the point of tedium, had offered him the Delmoleen job on behalf of
Parton Parcel
. Glad once again to be in work, Griff Merricks continued as he always had done, resolutely safeguarding apple-carts from the risk of upset.

Trevor the forklift truck driver, however, seemed bent on a rampage of apple-cart upsetting. At the beginning of the morning he had been most amenable, keen to show off his forklifting skills and demonstrating a lively interest in the camera that was being used for the filming (‘Like, a bit of a hobby of mine, video, like . . .'

In fact, he had been perfectly docile until he discovered what Charles's role was to be in the proceedings. From that moment, he had made as much trouble as he could. And was clearly not about to change his behaviour.

‘It didn't bloody look fine!' he protested. ‘Listen, I've done the tricky bit on the truck, haven't I? I actually brought the pallet down from the shelves, didn't I?'